


By Your Side

by mrsmischief



Category: Wallander (UK TV)
Genre: Angst, Detectives, F/M, Fluff, Hospitals, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Police, Sad, Shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:24:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsmischief/pseuds/mrsmischief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You and your partner/boyfriend from Ystad Polis, Detective Magnus Martinsson, are working on an arrest. Something goes horribly wrong, however, and the consequences change everything. How will you get over it - or will you?</p><p>Trigger warning for a few mentions of blood and shooting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Your Side

I have never liked hospitals. I tolerate them, because they are a part of my job, but I don't like them. I don't like the smell of anti-disinfectants, or the pale walls, or the doctors in their white coats and the patients huddled pathetically in their seats or beds, or the families visiting and looking so remorseful and disgustingly _full of love_ , even though they might have been arguing about the kid's new boyfriend or threatening each other with god knows what or writing divorce papers just yesterday. But oh no, once you're in the hospital you're a saint and everyone loves you, because you, poor thing, are not well.

I hate it, I hate the pity in everyone's eyes, I hate how quiet everyone speaks. As if everyone there was dying, when actually most people walk out of there on their own feet fairly soon. I hate the hushed voices, the quiet footsteps, and the stupid daytime TV in the background of everything, like it was some all-seeing eye, prying on every little thing happening there.

Most of all I hate it when someone is in the hospital because of me.

It was an accident, I know. Sometimes arrests go wrong, especially with a crazy, murdering mum-of-two-gone-nuts. Yeah, I know, a middle-aged lady hardly sounds dangerous, but in reality those ones are the worst. Ordinary people with clean backgrounds, pushed over the line. Mad with anger or sorrow, or, like in this case, both. That's what you get when you marry a psychotic man who does all kinds of fucked up shit to your kid. It's understandable. You get angry, or beyond angry, really: just a stone-cold killing mood is what it is. Mother tiger and all. Or so I've been told by all kinds of experts.

But you know what's not understandable, no matter how angry you are? Shooting a police officer who is just doing her job. That's over the line, that's not ok. Out of duty, I couldn't care less if she had shot that man, he deserved it, and our judicial system deserved it for allowing him to get away with what he had done because of "lack of proof". Whatever. But we were on duty, we had to stop her, we had to get them both out of the situation safely. We didn't. We failed.

 _I_ failed.

And now my partner is in there, lying in her designated hospital bed with all kinds of tubes and beeping things attached to her. She lies there, unconscious, weak, sick. And it's all my fault.

It was an accident, yes, but it should never have happened. I should've reacted more quickly, I should've done something differently, I should've shot the woman before she touched the gun... I had too much trust in her, in my partner, my... lover. I thought she was handling it, that if I got involved I'd just fuck it up. Turns out I fucked it up, anyway.

I can't even bring myself to say her name. It feels like... Like I'm not worthy of it, like my tongue would somehow ruin it if I said it. Just like I ruin everything. She's pure, she's my sunlight, she's all I wish I was, and yet I'm the one who's walking around with no gunshot wound on his side. She trusted me, I was her _partner_ , for fuck's sake! And I wasn't there for her.

I still am not.

It had been three days, and I hadn't visited her. I was working, doing my best to keep myself busy. I filed the report about what happened as soon as I could, and I've been the target of Wallander's undivided attention for those precious seven minutes it took him to go through it all again. He tried to get me to visit her, as did Anne-Britt.

"She needs you," they said, with that pathetic kindness in their eyes. That belonged to the hospital, not to the office. Not to me.  
"You should go visit her." As if I didn't know that.  
"It wasn't your fault, Magnus." Oh, yes it was.

Three days, and I still had't visited. The first day was a mess, I filed that report, I sat in the office, unable to do or say anything. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to them. So what did I do? I went to the gun range. And for the record, that was my best shooting ever. I hit target perfectly with every single shot. I was perfectly focused. Never been better.

You probably think I imagined it was that woman, the crazy one who shot her. That I imagined shooting her. Well, you're wrong.

I imagined it was me.

Because that's what it felt like. It felt like I was the one who had been shot. Straight to the heart. I felt the pain, I gasped, I could hardly breathe. It was overwhelming. Like a 24/7 panic attack. Maybe that's what it was.

At the scene I was calm. The woman shot the man she'd been after, and then herself, so it was only me and my partner. I called for an ambulance, then gave my partner what first aid I could. I held her hand, I told her it would be fine, I was there until the ambulance came. Then she was taken away, out of my reach, to that kingdom or sterile whiteness that I couldn't enter.

Someone else scraped the blood off the ground, and I still stood there. I watched, I replayed what had happened a thousand times in my head. It just didn't make sense. I tried to understand what had went wrong, what I could've done differently, which moment was the one that mattered the most. I couldn't find it. I tried, I really did. It was all a blur, the sound of a gunshot and then nothing. Just red, her red blood as she bled there, and yelled at me.

Oh yes, she yelled at me. She knew the wound wasn't lethal, it hurt like a bitch but it wasn't lethal, so she told me to stop just standing there like a moron and call for backup. So I did. Even though we didn't need it anymore. The danger was over, it was just me and her, and the blood.

That day, I worked until midnight. I filed the reports I should've written months ago, I did all the paperwork. I organised the case files. I even filled the coffee machine for the morning shift people. I just didn't want to go home. I couldn't go, not to my home where everything was normal, where I'd see the bag she had left for the following night, not the unmade bed with the wrinkles in the sheets we had made last night. I couldn't sleep in that bed, not smell her scent and hear her voice in my head, see her body under me. I couldn't go there, and be reminded of what could have been if I just had done the right thing.

Eventually I did go. I dragged my tired limbs to that door, opened it, and tried so hard to not see anything that would remind me of her. I closed my eyes from seeing her toothbrush in the bathroom, or the book she had left on the living room table. Or her handwritten note on the fridge, reminding me to buy milk. Well, didn't do that, did I?

I brushed my teeth, somehow finding the strength for that, then fell down on the sofa. I had changed at work, so I didn't have the clothes with her blood on anymore. They were new, a pair of jeans and a sweater, nothing special. Comfortable enough to sleep in.

Not that I slept, however. Not well. Only a few blinks here and there, waking up with a jerk every time my head replayed the scene from the morning and my hands were stained with her blood again.

That was the cycle I had been repeating, for those three days. Nightmares at night, nightmares at day. It wouldn't stop. I kept picking up the phone, trying to pluck up courage to phone the hospital and at least ask about her. I didn't have it. Sometimes I even dialled the number, then put the phone back down. I heard how she was from Anne-Britt instead. She was fine, still under medication and unconscious, but alive. That was what mattered. She was alive. And she wasn't going to die. She had known it, she had told me that when the bullet hit her, told me it wasn't bad, but who would believe her in that situation? I didn't. I knew she was trying to keep me calm, she could see the panic and fear in my eyes, and she cursed me for it.  
"Fuck, Martinsson, I won't leave you! I'm not going to die, ok?" she said, and I nodded. I tried to believe, but the fear was too strong. I couldn't lose her. Not when... Not when I had just realised it. Realised that I loved her. I loved her, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I couldn't lose her. Not then, not ever.

On the fourth day, Wallander himself stepped down from his throne and came to kick my ass.  
"If you won't go, I'll fire you," he said, but I could see he wasn't serious. He was tired, he was worried, and he was done with my shit. I nodded, picked up my bag and car keys, and left.

But I didn't go in the hospital. Not straight away. I drove there, I sat in my car, looking at the building and the people going in and out. I sat and watched, and I didn't go in. I must have been there for hours, until it started to get dark. Only then I dared to step out of my car, sneaking in with the darkness as my cover. Perhaps the dark would hide my sins.

The fluorescent lights revealed it all, though. The fear in my eyes, the agony, the unease as I walked to the desk and asked for her room. 31. The room number was 31, but by the time I was at the door it felt like I had walked 31 miles instead. I shook, and I paused to take a moment to breathe. I don't know why I was so nervous, why I dreaded going in so much, but I did. Perhaps it was the idea of her there, of my strong and amazing girlfriend there, so helpless. Or maybe it was just because I knew it was I who had put her there. Not directly, but the weight of the consequences was on my shoulders nevertheless.

I opened the door. She was awake now, looking sleepy. They had taken her off the medication that tired her the most, so that day was the first day she had been properly awake.

I walked to her, to the bed, standing there awkwardly, unsure of what to do. She smiled.  
"Take a chair and sit down," she said, her voice quiet and croaky. It wasn't the voice I remembered, but it was still her voice, and it made me feel much better. I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and sat down by her bed, my hands in my lap. My eyes examined her, trying to see everything and nothing at the same time. She was under the white hospital duvet, only her hands and a part of her torso were visible. I didn't see the wounded side, or the bandaging covering the wound. I could almost pretend it wasn't there. Except that I couldn't.

I looked at her, into those tired but still so beautiful eyes, and I felt myself break to pieces then. I had held myself together for days, but now, I broke. She broke me, just like I had broken her. I sniffed, trying to keep the tears from burning my eyes, wishing they would go away, but of course they didn't.  
"I'm so sorry," I sobbed. She shook her head, but I still continued speaking. I had to say it, I had to say those words to her or I might never sleep again.  
"I know I should've shot her, I should've been quicker. I've gone through that moment so many times, I know it was me. I was too slow, I didn't do what I should've done. It was my fault. I'm the reason you're there now, I'm the reason you're hurt. And I'm so sorry."

With each word, my tears had become more and more insistent on spilling, and by the time I finished they were flowing  freely down my cheeks. She moved her left hand on the bed, towards me. I reached for it, took it with both my hands, as if it was my anchor to life and forgiveness.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." I whispered, unable to stop. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, they, too, were brimming with tears.  
"It wasn't your fault, Magnus," she said, "it could've happened to anyone. You were doing your job, and I shouldn't have gone that close to her. It was my fault just as much."  
"But I..."  
"No buts, please. I've been over it, too, again and again, as I've been lying here, wondering when you'd come. I knew you'd blame yourself, I knew it would take you days to even step into the building. But it wasn't your fault, Magnus, so please stop beating yourself up about it."  
"I..."  
"Seriously, stop." She squeezed my hand tighter, her eyes more stern until she smiled.  
"And when I get out of here, I'll kick your ass again. For blaming yourself, and for coming here and making me cry."  
"Is that a promise?" I asked, smiling through my tears.  
"You bet your ass it is."

The rest of my visit was better. We talked, complained about the awful TV programme and the fact that the remote was out of battery. She got her dinner, and I watched her eat the mild, tasteless hospital soup. I stayed until the end of the visiting hours. The nurse knocked on the door to tell us our time was up, and yet I didn't want to go.

"I'll come back tomorrow," I said, leaning down to kiss her. I had missed that, the gentle touch of her lips.  
"Is that a promise? Don't go and chicken out on me again, Martinsson."  
"I won't!"  
"See you tomorrow."  
"Yes... See you tomorrow."

When I walked to my car, I looked up at the sky, at the dark starry Ystad sky, and stopped walking for a moment. I stood there, looking up at the night, and for the first time in four days I breathed. It was relief, it was hope, it was joy. I took at least twenty deep breaths, then continued walking with a smile on my face. I'd be at the hospital as soon as I could the following morning, right when the visiting hours would start. And I would continue going there, as long as it took her to heal. I'd be there, every moment I could. And she would heal, I'd make sure of that. I wouldn't fail her again, never again.


End file.
